About Me

Gregg Walker is a Harlem Resident and 1997 graduate of Yale Law School who worked as an investment banker for 9 years and was the Vice President of Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions at Viacom for 3 years. Gregg served as the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Sony from 2009 to 2016, and he launched his own private investing firm in July 2016 (www.gawalker.co). Gregg was chosen in 2010 by Crain's as one of NYC's 40 Under 40 Rising Stars (http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/40under40/profiles/2010/gregg-walker). Gregg is a Deacon at Abyssinian Baptist Church and served as the chairman of the Board of the Harlem YMCA. He has served on the Boards of movie studio MGM and music publishing companies Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing. He is also a Board member of Harlem RBI and Derek Jeter's Turn 2 Foundation. He is a former Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a representative of the US at the 2002 Young Leaders Conference of the American Council on Germany. Gregg is also a member of many other foundations and community organizations.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Bad News for Black Men in NYC

Last week was a week of bad news for Black men in New York City. The Village Voice detailed the City's commitment to prevent Black men from obtaining a fair chance to join the Fire Department of New York, and the Community Service Society showed us that only 25% of young Black men in New York City are employed.

FDNY - A Closer Look

The Village Voice showed us last week how the leadership of our city has invested heavily in preventing the 90% white Fire Department of New York from becoming more representative of the racial make-up of our city.

Though the article in the Village Voice focuses initially on the plight of Black would-be firefighters who scored very well on the FDNY entrance exam but who cannot join the FDNY because New York City refuses to accept any of the options for accepting new firefighters put forward by a federal judge, the truth of the intensity of New York City's commitment to racial discrimination in hiring at the FDNY is made clear.

The entrance exam has a history of resulting in higher scores for white applicants than for Black or for Hispanic applicants. The test also has no relationship to being an effective firefighter.

Because the test results have favored white applicants without any relationship to the jobs being filled, the test has been declared by the federal courts to violate the US Constitution.

The federal courts have offered the City multiple options for hiring new firefighters without discriminating based on race, but New York City has refused to accept any of the options provided.

Though 5% of the FDNY was Black in 1971, it is now less than 4% Black, and the 90% figure for white representation in the FDNY compares to approximately 35% white population in our city.

Unfortunately, young Black men now have only a 1 in 4 chance in being employed in NYC.

That horrifying statistic nearly matches the horrifying 28% of NYC Black males who graduate from high school.

Our city is failing to educate its young Black men, and those Black men are suffering in the job market.

Perhaps our city will start to show the type of dedication to helping Black males that is has shown to keeping them out of the FDNY, excluding them from the city administration, or stopping and frisking them in record numbers in a humiliating display of the abuse of power permitted by our city when the victims are Black members of our community.

1 comment:

This 25% statistic is really, really disturbing, but the 28% is even more tragic-- shows us that while we can partly blame the economy, we also have to examine the ramifications of more systematic oppression. Thank you for keeping us informed.